Sunday, May 17, 2009

Twittering 911

I'm not sure about this.
Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall said it’s worth exploring. On Friday he used the social-media tool Twitter to obtain assistance for a woman who suffered a seizure at the intersection of John Wesley Dobbs Avenue and Jackson Street...Hall said Sunday night he planned to register @911Atl on Twitter, though the city’s emergency operators won’t be responding to “tweets” anytime soon. A phone call remains the only way to directly contact 911 in Atlanta. “Let’s see how we can embrace this new technology and maybe save some lives,” Hall said.
Points for thinking outside the box, but one of the safeguards of the 911 system is when you call, authorities know where you are. If some fool decides to get his jollies off by punking the emergency system, he will get a visit from Johnny Law who will promptly throw his butt in the pokey.

How in the world would you prevent these types of resource soaking distractions on Twitter?

2 comments:

Garrett said...

I'm not sure it's much different from A) caller ID blocking and B) pay phones. Neither of them is a 100% effective anonymizer, but Twitter isn't completely anonymous, either. I think tracing someone's IP address and is just as likely as bypassing A or B, which are roadblocks to effective POTS 911 enforcement.

Andisheh Nouraee said...

But think how much fun it'll be to read

http://tr.im/lEEp